HoHum:
From Max Lucado- “I have everything I need for joy!” Robert Reed said. His hands are twisted and his feet are useless. He can’t bathe himself. He can’t feed himself. He can’t brush his teeth, comb his hair, or put on his underwear. Strips of Velcro hold his shirts together. His speech drags like a worn out audiocassette. Robert has cerebral palsy. The disease keeps him from driving a car, riding a bike, and going for a walk. But it didn’t keep him from graduating from high school or attending a Christian University, from which he graduate with a degree in Latin. Having cerebral palsy didn’t keep him from teaching at St. Louis Junior College or from venturing overseas on five mission trips. And Robert’s disease didn’t prevent him from becoming a missionary in Portugal. He moved to Lisbon, alone, in 1972. There he rented a hotel room and began studying Portuguese. He found a restaurant owner who would feed him after the rush hour and a tutor who would instruct him in the language. Then he stationed himself daily in a park, where he distributed brochures about Christ. Within six years he led seventy people to the Lord, one of whom became his wife, Rosa. I heard Robert speak recently. I watched other men carry him in his wheelchair onto the platform. I watched them lay a Bible in his lap. I watched his stiff fingers force open the pages. And I watched people in the audience wipe away tears of admiration from their faces. Robert could have asked for sympathy or pity, but he did just the opposite. He held his bent hand up in the air and boasted, “I have everything I need for joy.” His shirts are held together by Velcro, but his life is held together by joy.
WBTU:
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,” Galatians 5:22, NIV.
Like last week with love, we are commanded to love, we are also commanded to be joyful. “Be joyful always;” 1 Thessalonians 5:16, NIV. “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” Philippians 4:4, NIV.
What is joy? According to the Handy Bible Dictionary it is: “An emotion excited by expectation or acquisition of something good.” Excited by expectation is closely linked with hope. “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.” Romans 12:12, NIV.
Acquisition of something good is akin to obtaining salvation. “joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.” Colossians 1:11, 12, NIV.
Joy is similar but different from happiness. Happiness comes and goes based on circumstances but joy is to abide even in the midst of troubles. “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds,” James 1:2, NIV.
The emotions associated with happiness and joy are similar, talk about bliss, delight, pleasure.
Thesis: Let’s talk about the pleasures of joy and then the stewardship of joy
For instances:
The Pleasures of joy
A. The good pleasures of joy
Physical pleasures are sensations. The pleasure of having the back rubbed is a sensation in the back, the pleasure of eating and drinking is in the tongue and throat and nose.
Spiritual pleasures are based on meaning. When the doctor tells us that our newborn baby is healthy, we take pleasure in the news, in the fact that the baby is healthy. We don’t feel this pleasure in any part of our body per se. True that we may feel a leaping in our midsection, an impulse to dance, and big smile on our face. We have these sensations but we are delighting in the way the world is: our baby is in good shape and we are pleased. We might call this emotion joy. Joy is a kind of satisfaction in this sense.
We can have joy in doing an activity. If we enjoy an activity, when it is free from frustration and we do it well, this gives us joy. “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship.” Romans 12:1, NIV. This is suggesting that the Christians activity, which is best done with some joy, consists of bodily activities like waiting tables, standing up in front of crowds, tending the sick, writing letters, visiting prisons. When these things are done with joy, this activity intermingles so that the body and spirit become one in the enjoyment.
B. The bad pleasures of joy
This might sound strange to us. It is wrong to think that joy is always good as it is to think that sorrow is always bad. We have seen that to feel joy is to see a situation as good, but sometimes people see bad situations as good. Like when someone delights in the public humiliation of a brain damaged person, his pleasure is evil. Scripture tells us that Judas Iscariot went to the chief priests to betray the Lord to them, and that when they saw what he was offering to do, “They were delighted (same root word of rejoice) to hear this and promised to give him money. So he watched for an opportunity to hand him over.” Mark 14:11, NIV. The idea of crucifying an innocent man was for them an intense pleasure. This evil joy shows the corruption of their hearts. We would never be that way, oh really? Have we ever rejoiced over hearing the latest dirt on our neighbor? Ever taken joy (pleasure) in someone else’s misfortune. We experience this kind of joy when someone we envy suffers a setback.
Now for Christians we know that we should not take joy in these kinds of things. However, our joys reveal our hearts by showing us what we care about. Our souls are divided, we enjoy our wicked joys, but the more we reflect on them, the more pain they cause us.
We avoid pain because it is the opposite of pleasure. We don’t want to think about those wicked pleasures we have, because it brings us shame. “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.” Psalms 139:23, NIV. We must think on this to cause our transformation. This is a goal for the Christian: to become the kind of person who takes joy in what is biblically good, and is pained by what is biblically bad.
C. A good example
John the Baptist- “You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Christ but am sent ahead of him.’ The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must become greater; I must become less.” John 3:28-30, NIV.
Our joy needs to be in the Savior. John the Baptist expresses his love for Jesus in the joy that he feels when he sees Jesus coming into the world. He foresees a fulfillment of his expectations and hopes, and his heart is filled with gladness. Upon this joy he now says that he must become less. John gave up his place of honor to another greater than he. John humbly accepts his position with joy for Jesus and the coming kingdom. This joy shows that John was so taken by God’s program that he was willing to take a back seat.
The Joy of Stewardship
Read Matthew 25:14-30-
Stewardship is a central teaching of the Bible. We are not owners, we are stewards. From the creation we are stewards. The Fall has turned this around. We are owners and not stewards but this is the result of sin. Best work according to how we are created.
In this parable Jesus takes into account each one’s ability. Gives 5 to one, 2 to another, 1 to another. The master is pleased with the first two servants. This parable is about stewardship and this stewardship is connected to joy (NIV says happiness but in the Greek it is joy). “Enter into the joy of your master.” But what is this joy? Just before telling them to enter his joy, he tells them he’s going to give them even more responsibility. Now we might respond to this by saying that we don’t want more responsibility. What kind of reward is that? It is true that we need a vacation, a Sabbath, now and then, but it’s the spirit of a true steward that takes joy in acting on behalf of his master. That is why entering into joy of his master means, for him, being able to act even more as the master’s steward. These two good stewards were experiencing joyful all along the way. Each day, while the master was gone, they were working in the awareness that it was for him they were working, and because it was for him, their work was a joy to them. This work had a joy that went beyond the immediate pleasure of the work itself, and that delightful meaning was that the work was for the master.
The last servant is a different story. If we take the master to symbolize the Lord, then the wicked servant has misinterpreted the master. The Lord doesn’t need any more money or stuff from us. Let’s imagine that this servant went out and invested his talent in a wheat field. He works the wheat field and does what he can, but in the end the wheat crop fails. The master is not going to say, “You wicked and useless servant. You lost my money. If you’d have been more conservative and invested with the bankers, I’d still have my money. You lost it in a bad investment, how dare you!” No, he won’t say that. He might say, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You tried your best. You have been faithful in a little, and I want you to continue to be my servant. Take one of the talents from the first two servants, and try again. Enter into the joy of your master.”
In the parable before us, the servant was condemned, not because he failed, but because he didn’t make use of what the master gave him. Jesus doesn’t say that the wicked servant did nothing at all while the master was away. He might have invested his own money and worked hard to get ahead, built a retirement fund, and supplied himself with many of the luxuries of life. He was not generally lazy; he was only lazy when it came to his master’s affairs. In other words, he didn’t lack the virtue of industriousness, he lacked the virtue of stewardship. He might not even have believed his line about the master being harsh and unjust. Maybe he just wanted to excuse his own selfishness in working only for himself and not for his master.
We have come to think of stewardship to address only money, but it goes beyond this. Time, talents, and treasures. We need to experience the joy of the Lord in our stewardship. We shouldn’t look grudgingly on this stewardship as though it’s only an annoying duty to fulfill. Do it with joy. A steward counts it a privilege and a delight to contribute in some way to the kingdom of God.
Imagine yourself coming before the Lord Jesus on the day of reckoning. He asks you, “What have you made of the ‘talents’ with which I supplied you, my steward?” Our answer, I hope, will indicate a life of stewardship, a life of love for his kingdom. And then will come the response we all long for: ““His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’” Matthew 25:23, NIV.
